15 Times Avengers Killed Other Avengers

One of the biggest rules that superheroes try to abide by is no killing. Traditional superheroes tend to take a solemn vow to never kill anyone. Not even their enemies. It’s a big reason why Daredevil keeps Kingpin alive, Spider-Man always hands his rivals in to the police, and why Batman has been chasing The Joker around Gotham City for decades now. If a superhero were to have only one rule that must never be broken, it would be killing. For a superhero, the only thing worse than killing a civilian or a supervillain is to kill a fellow hero. Believe it or not, superheroes killing other superheroes is not as rare of an occurrence as one would think. This has happened plenty of times in the comic book world and especially in Marvel’s own universe. In fact, it is Marvel’s own finest Avengers who have killed each other off in comics in the past more often than one may expect.

There are a number of reasons why Earth’s Mightiest have butted heads, clashed fists, and killed each other over the years. Egos, betrayal, misunderstandings, you name it. All have been reasons why superheroes have killed other heroes and in this case, why The Avengers have killed each other over the years. When the fate of the world is at stake, one would think that Earth’s Mightiest Heroes would find a way to remain a cohesive unit, but clearly judging by the body count that this list has to offer, that has not always been the case. We have not seen many instances of The Avengers duking it out with each other during the Cinematic Universe, yet alone killing each other, but there have been several of these instances in the comic books. Here are just a few examples of when members of The Avengers killed each other off.

15.Hulk Kills Tigra

Tigra is perhaps one of the more overlooked members of The Avengers. Since she has yet to make her debut on the big screen, a lot of people don’t even know who she is or how important she is to the team. Not only was she recruited as an Avenger way back in the 80s, she is the founding member of The Avenger’s West Coast branch and she taught students at Avengers Academy. For comic book readers familiar with her story, it made it all the more devastating to see her murdered at the hands of The Hulk in 1995. During The Last Avengers Story, in the midst of a battle with Ultron, Hulk surprises everyone by betraying his team and joining forces with Ultron. An infuriated Tigra lunges at The Hulk to claw the traitor’s eyes out. The behemoth catches the super powered tiger woman by her arms and legs and proceeded to brutally rip her in half as her allies watches on helplessly.

14.Luke Cage Kills Jessica Jones and Squirrel Girl

While Jessica Jones herself never joined The Avengers—unless we count the What If… mini-series released in between 2004 and 2005 that was titled What If Jessica Jones Had Joined The Avengers?—her husband, Luke Cage, has joined the team as well as her friend Squirrel Girl. The latter is one of the current members of The Avengers Idea Mechanics. Under strange circumstances, Luke Cage found himself killing both of them. In Marvel Universe Vs. The Avengers, the world is succumbed to a deadly, mysterious virus which turns its inhabitants into bloodthirsty cannibals. Essentially, they more or less became zombies. The disease was accidentally released by The Punisher and within moments, the world was warped into a post-apocalyptic nightmare. Luke Cage was one of the infected patrons to the disease known as Survivor 118. In a mindless fury, he attacked and killed Squirrel Girl and, shortly afterwards, his wife Jessica Jones.

13.Black Panther Kills Namor

You know how an elephant never forgets? Well, neither does a panther. In the events of the Avengers vs X-Men mini-series, Namor destroyed Black Panther’s city of Wakanda. When the two came to a reluctant truce as members of The Avengers, Panther warned Namor in New Avengers #2 that because Namor had the blood of the Wakandan people on his hands, Panther was going to kill him when the time was right. So Black Panther waited for the right moment and never forgot the destruction of his land and people. The moment came in Avengers #40 when Black Panther and Namor duked it out to the death. The King of Wakanda came out on top by stabbing The Sub-Mariner through the heart. As much as Panther had made it loud and clear up until this point that he would never forgive the King of Atlantis, it still came as a shock for The Avenger to kill his teammate in their long-awaited confrontation.

12.She-Hulk Kills The Vision

The storyline called Avengers: Disassembled concerns itself with The Vision still reeling from his wife, Scarlett Witch, going insane after the death of their twin children. At one point, Vision is so distraught that he crashes the Avengers jet into the Avengers Mansion. After apologizing, he warns his comrades that he no longer has control of his body as he starts to melt and spheres start releasing from his mouth. These spheres slowly manifest themselves into 5 drones of Ultron who unleash a flurry of offense against The Avengers that left a member of the team dead. When the battle was over, She-Hulk was furious at Vision for producing all of this unwanted, unnecessary chaos. Her fury was amped up to 11 when an onlooking Scarlet Witch placed a spell under She-Hulk. As much as The Avengers tried to call She-Hulk down, it was to no avail as she proceeded to rip Vision’s body in half.

11.Marvel Zombies

Over the last few years, Marvel has had several stories, comics, and series that spawned from their Marvel Zombies event. Throughout this series, several members of the Marvel universe (especially those who have some allegiance to The Avengers) found themselves turned into zombies after an infection called “The Hunger” breaks out. Many of these zombified heroes turned other heroes into zombies and even went as far as to kill some of the living. One of the most notable zombie moments came in issue #1 of Marvel Zombies: Dead Days when four zombified versions of The Avengers, the Fantastic Four, attacked none other than the founder of The Avengers himself, Nick Fury. The Fantastic Four went on to not only kill the SHIELD leader, but also eat him alive. The Marvel Zombies storyline proved to be a gruesome event indeed, but this instance is perhaps the most significant moment in the series if only for Avengers comrades killing the man who started the operation unit.

10.Hawkeye Kills Black Widow

Throughout several comic books and especially the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the relationship between Hawkeye and Black Widow has been showcased as something of a close bond of friendship. However, the events of Mark Millar’s The Ultimates sought to fracture that special bond when it revealed Black Widow as the ultimate traitor. Shortly after accepting a marriage proposal from Tony Stark, it was revealed that she betrayed The Avengers as a double agent working for The Liberators. She aided them in their invasion of the United States by framing Thor and Captain America while revealing The Hulk’s true identity to the world and having a role in killing Hawkeye’s entire family. The latter would seek his revenge by chasing her down to a hospital where he pierced an arrow through his former friend’s head.

9.Sentry Kills Ares

The only thing more dangerous than a superhero with seemingly limitless abilities is a superhero with an evil split personality. Sentry happens to be both. In the events of the Siege storyline, Sentry had finally lost control of his dark Void persona in the aftermath of Bullseye killing his wife. After being manipulated into working for Norman Osborn’s Avengers unit, Sentry was convinced to lead a siege into Asgard after Osborn deemed the Asgardians too dangerous of a threat to the planet Earth. Eventually, fellow Avenger Ares was able to peg Osborn as a wolf in sheep’s clothing set out to play the heroes against each other. Ares tried to kill Osborn, but to protect someone who Sentry thought to be an innocent man, Sentry literally ripped Ares apart, limb from limb with his intestines flying everywhere. It was one of the most gruesome deaths in Marvel history.

8.Thor Kills Sentry

By time the Siege storyline was nearing its climactic finish, Sentry had been fully taken over by the Void and Thor was just plain fed up with the cavalcade of destruction that Sentry was bringing to his home of Asgard. The final straw came when Sentry killed Thor’s brother, Loki, and from then on, the gloves were off for all parties involved. The Avengers quickly learned just how difficult it is to fight off a seemingly indestructible being. It took them nearly causing a nuclear explosion by dropping their Hellcarrier on Sentry to cause any damage. Even then, the blow only injured Sentry, but it was enough to cause him to briefly revert out of his Void persona. Realizing the destruction he caused, he begged The Avengers to kill him as he could no longer even trust himself. The Avengers wanted to keep Sentry alive so that he could stand a proper trial, but moments later, the Void took over Sentry once more and attacked the team. Momentarily, his wish was much obliged by Thor who killed both Sentry and The Void. Thor then memorialized his former ally by carrying his body into the sun for cremation.

7.Rogue Kills Scarlet Witch

Though Rogue is best known for her allegiance to the X-Men, there was a point where she belonged to The Avengers. In fact, she led The Avengers’ Unity Division after joining the team in Uncanny Avengers #4. Like the rest of The Avengers on this list, Rogue is no stranger to killing off one of her teammates. In Uncanny Avengers #14, 10 issues after joining The Avengers, Rogue ended up killing one of her new teammates. After Scarlet Witch found herself in the dreaded clutches of the Red Skull and his team consisting of the Apocalypse Twins and the Four Horsemen of Death, they ordered her to use her powers to transport all of the mutants to a space ark on Jupiter to colonize a planet full of mutants. Scarlet Witch reluctantly agreed, but planned to double cross her captors by having the mutants work as an army to kill these villains. However, when news got back to Rogue, she believed that Scarlet Witch actually betrayed her team. In retaliation, Rogue absorbed Wolverine’s powers to pierce her claws through Scarlet Witch’s body.

6.Thor Kills The Wasp

The Secret Invasion mini-series proved to be one of the biggest challenges that The Avengers ever had to face. Their rivalry against an evil alien army of Skrulls forced the team to make a slurry of difficult decisions, including a decision that meant killing one of their own in favor of saving the rest of the planet. In the conclusion of the series, it seemed like The Avengers had finally gotten rid of those dastardly Skrulls. That is until it was revealed that a Skrull impersonating Yellow-Jacket had been secretly been poisoning The Wasp with a formula that she thought would reverse her shrinking abilities into growing abilities. The formula actually turned her into a human bomb strong enough to destroy the entire planet. In a move that would save the world at the cost of killing a fellow Avenger, Thor had to reluctantly sacrifice her by sending her through a vortex.

5.Spider-Man Kills Captain America

In Civil War II, after an oracle of sorts named Ulysses strolls into town, Captain Marvel leads a team of heroes who believe they have the right to stop evil before they commit the crime while Iron Man leads a team who disagree. Basically, think of it as the comic book version of Minority Report. The philosophical plot thickens further and gets even more complicated when Ulysses has a vision of Spider-Man (Miles Morales) killing Captain America (Steve Rogers). While Captain Marvel places Morales under arrest for a crime that he has yet to commit, the mini-series ends with both he and Rogers alive. However, that doesn’t mean that this future still isn’t likely to occur. Though Tony Stark deemed Ulysses’ prediction abilities to be based more on probability than absolute truth, his predictions were still more accurate than not. So comic book readers should still keep this image of Spidey killing Cap in the back of their minds until further notice.

4.Scarlet Witch Kills Vision, Hawkeye, and Ant-Man

The House of M storyline saw Scarlet Witch finally lose control of her unstable powers. Not even skilled psychics like Professor X and Doctor Strange were able to help her keep her reality bending abilities under control. Scarlet Witch’s lack of control created a domino effect of unprecedented chaos that inadvertently caused the deaths of numerous Avengers. At one point in the storyline, her memories of her children gets wiped out. When those memories are recovered, she is furious. She unleashes an onslaught against The Avengers. As previously mentioned, she convinced She-Hulk to kill The Vision. Scarlet Witch also caused Jack of Hearts to explode at Avengers Mansion while Ant-Man was still inside. She even went as far as to summon a Kree army in a battle that caused Hawkeye to perish on an exploding Kree ship. Her fury brings a whole new meaning to “Hell hath no fury like a woman’s scorn.”

3.Hawkeye Kills The Hulk

The events of Civil War II turned friends against friends and the body count grew seemingly as each panel progressed into the next. Things grew even more complicated and confusing for The Avengers when Ulysses has a vision predicting that The Hulk would kill all of them in the near future. When Captain Marvel and the rest of the team confront Bruce Banner at his lab on the matter, they all meet outside where Hawkeye snipes Banner with an arrow. Hawkeye is immediately arrested for murdering Banner, but reveals on trial that Banner told Hawkeye months beforehand to kill him if Banner ever lost control of The Hulk. Hawkeye considered Ulysses’ vision as a sign that Banner will lose control of The Hulk and he couldn’t afford to wait until that vision came to fruition. Hawkeye was then acquitted of all charges.

2.Captain Marvel Kills Iron Man

The concept of Civil War II sees The Avengers divided into two groups following the death of James Rhodes (War Machine), Tony Stark’s best friend and Carol Danvers’ lover, at the mighty hands of Thanos. The conflict between the two finally came to a head in the climax of the mini-series when the two leaders collided in one final battle. Iron Man (wearing a variation of his best friend’s suit) and Captain Marvel went toe to toe in a chaotic fight that the billionaire playboy philanthropist could not walk away from. Their fight ends with Captain Marvel delivering a mighty blow to Iron Man’s torso in similar fashion to how War Machine died. While Stark’s fate seemingly remains up in the air, he is certainly out of the picture. Physically, that is. His brain was uploaded into an A.I. digital projection (which Stark ordered to happen in the case his bodily functions fail him) and RiRi Williams has since taken up the Iron Man mantle.

1.Deadpool Kills EVERYONE

What makes this such a unique case is the fact that this relatively recent Avengers recruit, Deadpool, did not just kill his teammates. He killed everyone in the entire Marvel universe. In the self-explanatory miniseries Deadpool Kills the Marvel Universe, the X-Men place Deadpool in an asylum with hopes of curing him of his insanity. What they didn’t know was that one of the doctors at the asylum was none other than Psycho Man. Even if you know nothing about Psycho Man, you should know that a guy with a name like that is the last person who needs to be near Deadpool. Psycho Man brainwashed Deadpool in hopes of controlling him, but inadvertently made Deadpool even crazier. Psycho Man’s experiments only helped Deadpool develop a new voice in his head. A voice telling him to kill everyone. So he did. Deadpool killed every superhero, supervillain, and Avenger that Marvel had to offer. You name ’em. Hulk, Thor, Spidey, etc. They all met gruesome fates at the hands of Deadpool. Not even his comic book’s writers were spared.